Terrapin Station

Reasonable and unreasonable according to whom?

Right, what the world is like determines that. What the world is like is that morality is only mental dispositions.

If morality is only mental dispositions, then if I value something, it is necessarily morally valuable to me. Morality is only mental dispositions. Th...

Do you understand that I don't agree with that premise?

I just explained this re formal logic versus plugging in natural language. What's difficult to understand about that?

I just said that there were common and uncommon definitions. (Not that I'm agreeing that your definition is common, but that's irrelevant for the mome...

How many times have I made it clear that just because one person feels that x is morally permissible, it doesn't imply that anyone else will feel that...

Why don't you understand that I don't accept the second premise in your argument when it comes to morality?

By your definition, maybe. Not by theirs. There aren't factually correct definitions. Just more or less common ones. It's not correct to be common, or...

Modus ponens is valid under traditional logic. If we ignore semantic problems with certain natural language formulations, and we retain the modus pone...

First, that would only be the case to an individual who values social harmony, general well-being and happiness. There could be an individual who does...

When we're talking about morality, I don't at all agree that it's self-evident that morality isn't ONLY mental dispositions towards actions. I think i...

What it is to "actually be good" to someone--and it's always to someone is for that person to have a particular disposition towards the act.

What is is for an act to be morally right or good to someone is for that person to consider the behavior in question permissible to obligatory conduct...

Well, if you morally value something, then necessarily it is morally valuable to you. It's not necessarily morally valuable to anyone else.

Sure, it's only morally okay in his opinion. Other people disagreed with him. So they're not going to allow him to do that.

If you think it's morally okay to hit someone, that does not mean that it's morally okay for you to hit someone in anyone else's opinion. It's only ok...

Okay, that is valid in terms of the formal logic of it. The problem with your argument above is with your second premise. Why should we assign "true" ...

Yes, that's fine. I'm writing a different response but I need to get back to it in a minute.

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So how does that relate to "there's the valuer - who is the one doing the valuing, so the one to whom the thing has value - and then there is the fact...

I'm not sure I understand that comment. You think that there is moral value "full stop" where it's not a particular individual morally valuing somethi...

I just don't want you to get banned. Anyway re the first post? "Right. So it doesn't do any good to look at its conclusion for what I'm asking you, be...

Right. So it doesn't do any good to look at its conclusion for what I'm asking you, because what I'm asking you is something about the first premise. ...

The first premise of the argument hinges on this. You're not saying that what you're concluding in the argument is the same as what we're stating in t...

So as I said, that makes no sense to me at all. What makes something morally problematic regardless of anyone's opinion about the thing in question?

In other words, you're positing moral values independent of any individuals. As you said, "moral values full stop." I'm asking what reasons there are ...

Sure. But the problem is that that doesn't make any sense to me at all. You're categorizing desire as morally problematic regardless of anyone's opini...

Well, maybe they don't get bored because they're doing whatever, but the point I'm still trying to get at is that we can have someone who doesn't have...

By the way, if he thinks that no valuing of ours are moral values, then re the "P" of "If my values are moral values," we have to assign "false" to it...

I can understand that Schopenhauer felt that way, but why would you think that it's necessarily universal? You're not familiar with people who never f...

Well, the utility of me asking questions and you giving answers is that you can explain it to me better.

Re my earlier post (I'm adding to it in a new post because you might miss it otherwise), the idea is similar to, say, presenting two options for wallp...

What I'm getting at is that there's a difference between "I want food," which you seem to be categorically calling a "dissatisfaction," and having a n...

I fixed an important typo after you hit reply by the way. I forgot a "not" initially. Okay, but I'm saying that there are people who don't feel anythi...

I'm not sure I understand that response. Are you saying that it's impossible for Joe to feel that it's not negative that he has to get off the couch a...

But you're positing dissatisfaction as a state that's not necessarily negative for Joe, right (that is, in terms of how he feels about it)?

Personally, I think all sorts of things are more weighty than suffering, and I don't seem to be alone in that. Not that agreement matters, but I guess...

Well, it's certainly not something I agree with . . . and it's difficult for me to imagine why or how anyone would feel that way. But I can buy that m...

That sounds like you're saying the following for example: Joe has a desire for food, so Joe has to get food however he gets it (maybe as a baby it's o...

From previous discussions, the answer to that seemed to be a stance that prevention of suffering was all that mattered.

Structural suffering? What is that?

How about answering "What would be any reason to believe that value could obtain independent of an individual valuing something?"

Whether that's the case or not, I wasn't saying anything like that. He was talking about exceptions to supposed universals. I said that the problem is...

People claim things to be universal that are no such thing. That's the simple problem there.

I call it the "realism fetish" and I hate it. The realism fetish has become more prominent in the last couple decades. I'm a fan of fiction, of fantas...

Re the answers so far, it seems like we're overlooking things like hating particular TV commercials, songs, etc. I wouldn't say that there's just one ...

So are you now saying that beliefs aren't literally a part of expressed language?

What would be any reason to believe that value could obtain independent of an individual valuing something?